Price is what’s killing the California wine market. My favorite winery has gone from $25 a bottle to $80 in ten years. This is very common. I recently purchased a French Rhône for $23 that was as good as the $100 American. Guess which one I’ll buy.
Let me just say… I’ve been living in the Napa Valley for nearly a quarter century. When I first moved here there were far fewer wineries and far fewer acreage available for planting. Over the years thousands of acres of oaks were cut down to make land available for grapes. Many saw $$$ and jumped on the band wagon. Over the years there has become a glut of grapes. In addition twenty-five years ago wineries didn’t charge for tastings. Now you need a reservation and it will cost you at least $20, just to taste. For a very long time the wine industry has been making money hand over fist. They use cheap labor, benefit from the local officials being lenient, etc. If it had not been for greed they would not be in as bad of a position. Over production and the high cost of their products is a huge part of their problem. Blaming competition is like complaining that your neighbors lawn is greener than yours. That’s life! Many, many vintners and wine growers have become exceptionally wealthy over the years, now they’re crying about a little slump?
Oh yes. I remember the days I would drive thru Napa and get a free glass of wine at almost every winery. _Very different from today, where you get charged for everything. And you pay MORE for that same bottle than the price at your local store. Complete ripoff!_
Way back 50 years ago California wines would lobby the Fed govt to make sure a certain percentage of California grape pulp had to be in wine produced for New York State and other Eastern states, They would haul it across the US to be blended into eastern wines so Cal vintners would make alot of money doing that. Naples Ny for instance has had wineries for a long time , - they had Widmers for years and now Hazlitts and as the industry grew in eastern US the wineries were asking why do we have to add Cal grape pulp to our wines, we want our own pure wines. And they began to lobby in Washington and I believe the outcome was that eastern wines were not required to have Cal pulp so that may have hurt the industry also as it grew in California
High prices equal low demand. It’s not health effects, it’s pricing. I used to buy two or three bottles every time I went grocery shopping but now I use the money for milk and eggs. Wine consumption is a luxury. I don’t buy imports. 🍷
some of the imports are cheaper than the big wineries. I don't drink alcohol so their price or taste are meaningless for me. I did take a winery tour back in the early 80's when I still drank the poison. The tasting were free and you could buy wine cheaper than the package store. That was then, this is now.
Open up the tasting rooms again. Napa has no tourists. In the 80s and 90s you could winery hop and buy bottles on your road trip. Now you must pay $100 to sit in an empty tasting room. There’s no energy and it isn’t fun anymore.
Exactly I'm not gonna pay money to sample a product that I would buy if I enjoy it. I can't think of any other industry that suckers people into paying for their marketing.
Well said. “It’s not fun anymore” describes the impact of financial engineering and over the top regulations. But yes, duty draw back was a way for the big guys to crush the competition. Worked beautifully!
Who wants to visit California? It's all about agendas, riots, and radicalism, and no one wants to spend their money on that. No one even wants to live there. Other than the homeless and the rich When I was a kid, we used to drive to visit California. Me? I wouldn't take my family there. Just my perspective.
@bennyhogan6326 Exactly my friends and I visited Napa Valley for a weekend. While our trip was amazing and I mean the best trip ever! It was so expensive! We could visit multiple tropical destinations for 7 days for the amount we spent in 3 days. We would love you to return, but we just can't.
I took customers out to Napa and Sonoma for years. We’d go and do tasting room tours, buy wines, eat at great restaurants. It was so fun and we have great memories. When visiting so many wineries you’d get on their email lists and you could then buy wines to ship in. This was great too. Here’s the problem. That was the late 80’s and 90’s when a good bottle of wine from these vineyards would cost $40/bottle or so shipped in by the case. Now, that same vineyard sells their wines for $100, $200, and more per bottle. They’ve priced even the most ardent enthusiasts right out of the market.
@chuckdawit Correction, they want 25-30/hr because they're skilled workers that get treated like they're unskilled due to artificial market conditions. It's the same everywhere, business doesn't want to pay people what they're worth.l, skilled labor gets the shift I favor of less skilled to widen the profit margin.
Many of the original owner/maker wineries have been sold private equity firms, once the owner leaves and the private equity management takes over, the wineries lose their authenticity, and generally suck. so yes, I agree.
Amen, they want to be bailed out for bad economic decisions on their part. The stupid wine maker said the graph goes up and to the right T_T me going to be rich.
When I moved to the town I live in, Washington state not California, there were 14 wineries here. There are now over 200. But they are starting to fail one by one. I think the market is catching up.
Same here in BC Okanagan wine region. We just visited 2 weeks ago. It's amazingly more pretty than Napa. The wine is good but not Napa-great though we found some Napa-level gems there. Last year almost all the vines were killed by a deep freeze so this year there was only a 1/20 the yield of normal. We saw many wineries for sale, shut down, consolidating. Government regulations try to push Canadians to buy BC wines instead of California, which I think is unfair to California. Okanagan is now charging $10-20 per person for wine tasting that used to be free - taking a cue from Napa I guess, though 2/3 of them will refund the tasting cost if you buy a bottle or two. Napa was doing that 20 years ago and now even more pricey for tasting I understand. Anyways if you like visiting wine country, consider the Okanagan to make it more of a complete vacation, better than Napa.
I seen the area between Walla Walla Tri Cities and up the YaKima River how many orchards were converted over 20 years to grapes. Exponential growth. I could never figure where the heck all the wine is/was being sold to.
Yep because tge richer people have left California tget aren't going to spend extra money to ship ot ti texas or Florida When those states have thier own winery
@@TheFrogfeeder you clearly don't understand modern spell checkers Spell a word wrong enough tines, and it assumes it's spelled right And what's worse, it will "correct" it to the misspelled version What's even worse is that they removed the convenient part of being able to press hold the word to make it "forget" the word
@@Patrickf5087 lol, THATS your argument?? You’ve spelled 3 and 4 letter common words so often that your spell checker now thinks that’s the right way to spell them?? Ooookay
Depending on the wine, $40 can be a bargain. You can buy good years and keep them in your closet. Did that and I can see the retail prices go up. Break them out for special occasions.
Almost as if the death of the cannabis black market caused some abated farms to pivot to grapes to add to the supply..while the demand as you said just isn't there
Sum people push mass junk shiet into the market too. so If you're all about quality and fair prices.. you don't have to worry. Just don't buy from those people who push mass junk shiet and let them be stuck with it.
When will prices drop? I cringe when I look at restaurant menus and see them selling pedestrian wine for $18 to $30 and often much more for a glass. It’s ridiculously overpriced.
Good question! My contention as a winemaker and grower is that the prices will drop when the you don't have cheap foreign wine being subsidized (and no taxes on them) by the US Taxpayer being imported to undercut the US grower. Also, the cost of fuel has caused massive increase in packaging materials (glass, corks, labels, shipping, etc).
Restaurant pricing is another issue in and of itself. For restaurants, alcohol is by far the biggest margin item on the menu. They typically earn tiny margins on food. They price wine bottles at 3-5x the retail price. With costs of food, labor, rent, and energy costs high for restaurants and less people eating out, those restaurant wine prices will be ridiculous.
As an European I'd say that the prices are indeed a problem. It's not merely about EU subsidies. The Dollar having grown so strong in comparison to most other currencies, including most European currencies, has made American goods much more expensive. Even everything else remaining equal this makes a really big difference, and in addition prices in California has increased a lot more than elsewhere as well. (Because the EU has subsidized farmers for many decades, that is not what has changed the market wine market lately). When I visited California in 2009 prices on everything appeared slightly cheaper than back home and the dollar was somewhere around 70 percent of a Euro. But today living expenses in California would cost me about twice the amount of money than it does here in Europe, and the Dollar is about equal to the euro in value.
Fair question, but... Grapes utilize very little water compared to most crops. Also, the demand that was change very recently based off of the US government providing subsidies to large corporate wineries to import foreign bulk wine, undercutting the US Growers that used to sell the wine to these big corporations. Most of my fellow Growers didn't have time to pivot. We couldn't grow enough 4 years ago and now all the sudden we don't have a demand for hardly any and this is largely due to the incentivization of foreign bulk wine. If you spent $10,000 an acre minimum developing a Vineyard and had been selling that fruit to wineries your whole life and then all of the sudden they decided they didn't want to buy it anymore because they had cheap foreign wine from Spain and Chile that your own government was pushing on them, don't you think we have a little bit of a right to be pissed?
@@FarmerDan209 Yes, you farmers have every right to be pissed and the public has a responsibility to stand behind you when you decide it is time to protest these ruinous import policies.
@@FarmerDan209Also, consumers have a right to be pissed when we spend on California wines and they are not the quality we’ve come to expect (probably because they’ve blended CA wine with the cheaper import wines but how would we ever know?) - last month I dumped two bottles of Paso Robles wine down the drain. They were on sale for $12 and $18 so while I didn’t expect to be blown away, I did expect decent table wine.
@@aiastelamonian6868 yeah, at the end of the day, this isn't Europe & you can't eat wine grapes (taste nasty) & more productive crops can be grown in that soil & personally I'm tired of all the government subsides going out to industries, farmers & every one but the average tax payer. That's the reason we're so far in debt today & inflation is through the roof but farmers & ranchers are more important than the EV industry & AI.
@@scrappy836548 Farmers and ranchers get a tiny amount of subsidies if any at all compared to the EV and AI market place. Let alone what massive corporations receive annually.. And essential crops and livestock are grown in these regions but sadly anymore raising food crops can be much harder to turn a profit on compared to growing other things like wine grapes. Many American seem to not understand how things work these days
Same here. (50 years time) I witnessed Sonoma go from diversified farms to mega mono-crops, and major corporate vineyards planted which inundated the market for fast cash affecting the family wineries.
@@carolynoconnor8567 More beef in California ? Too water intensive . They should just take over the tequila market . Sorry MX . We'll call it just " Agave " so you don't sue us
Buy wine or put fuel in the tank? Buy wine or put food on the table? The entire nation if not the world, is struggling with all kinds of problems and issues, and wine is important? Nope.
My neighbor is a small winery, near oroville, always been successful that I could see with full parking lots on the tasting weekends, live music I can hear from my house, and it was good wine. Last year they sold the vineyard to their children and moved to Mexico, I haven’t seen their children do anything with the grapes this year. I used to get all the squeezed out pulp from them for my cows and goats to spend a nice week drunk out of their minds, we all gonna miss that…
Some of the wineries we toured 20 years ago in CA had ducks, geese, goats , donkeys, etc. I didnt think they might be drunk lol. We sure had a buzz. So glad we did it then when it was free and affordable.
My uncle started his Napa vineyard 60+ years ago. He opened his winery in 1982, he was one of about 100 wineries at the time. There are now over 400 wineries in Napa Valley. It’s a wealthy person’s venture it’s driven up the price of land and real estate. The Wine Enthusiast reports, “Sobriety is hip, and the World Health Organization announced last year that it considered no amount of alcohol consumption safe.” There is a long list of legal additives winemakers add to their wines. Even organic wines use additives in the U.S. But in the end, the market will adjust. We’ve seen this before and we’ll see it again.
I grew up in France where people at the times bought wine in crate of 12 bottles , some would have 2 or more crates and the wine dealer van would stop in regular basis , people would leave the crate with empty bottles by their front door and the wine dealer would take the empty and leave full bottles . A glass of what we called “ table wine “ cost around $0.60 at the bar versus $1.50 for a soda .
@@denisdenisb6132 I paid about #3/bottle of St Emillion, Montepulciano, and lots of others last summer in Lausanne, Switzerland. Look at California wine prices! Lower the prices and deal in volume and everyone benefits!!
Around my farm there are thousands of acres of abandoned vineyards for sale. These vineyards are for sale with no buyers because of the cost to remove them, and the aspect of no other profitable crops to take their place. Inflation has pushed up the cost to produce all crops, especially here in California.
@@concernedrn2844 Small farms like mine may not survive because we don`t have the deep pockets like the large corporate farms. You don`t seem to care about all the people that depend on these farms. Where I farm our water table was coming up until the state decided it was more important to protect the delta smelt over the farms.
Water will continue to be an issue in California’s Central Valley, agriculture is important to Central Valley communities however, agriculture consumes 80% of California’s water, yet agriculture accounts for less than 3% of California’s GDP and for those unaware, California is now the 4th largest economy in the WORLD. California is famous for some of its agriculture, wine, nuts , artichokes, olives and these crops and others should continue but by far the crop that is responsible for the largest consumption of water is alfalfa, which goes to feed cows, you might say California agriculture does not have a water problem , it has a cow problem. Luckily, precision fermentation will soon take the place of California’s cow problem.
@@LawrenceLudy Oh I do? I just don't support waste and alcohol makers. What do you grow? Do you use pesticides? Do you implement permaculture? Rain water catchment? Water conservation techniques?
I am almost 67 yrs old and what this gentleman said about boomers is accurate to my experience. I have maybe 12 cases of excellent Napa and Bordeaux. I have lost the desire for drinking wine as I have gotten older. The bottles I have left are special occasion/too valuable to open. I have opened a few but my tastes have changed. Good wine is very expensive. I quit buying and laying down years ago. 25 or so years of good wine for me and now I don’t really care about it. Parker is gone too.
Only Cabernet? What about Pinot Noir, Syrah, Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling , Chenin Blanc, among others? I think too many of us laid down a lot of heavy hitters that don't go with that many foods. I am still enjoying my collection, but I am trying to diversify. Sorry Napa and your overpriced reds.
Agree. At 63, health and feeling good is more important that a few hours of being buzzed and hung over/sleepy the next day. Gym and green juice is the new go to.
One use to be able to buy a bottle of CA wine for $10. Costco are now selling CA wines ranging from $50 to $120 a bottle. It's outside the price range of the average wine drinkers. If you cannot produce a good wine for $10 to $15 a bottle, maybe you should get out of the business.
Unfortunately California labor is extremely expensive. Yes your right trader joes has decent foreign wine for $10 a bottle The ca wines are too expensive
Visiting tasting rooms in Napa and Sonoma used to be about educating the uneducated about merits of wine/food pairing, cellaring, learning about factors in wine that you enjoyed , tasting, educational tours and classes were affordable, maybe $30-45 Per experience. However, in the last 10 years that has turned to how much can we charge for tasting,and how many people we can signed up in the wine club, and let’s triple the cost of classes and experiences we offer at our wineries. In my opinion they deserve it
No subsidies for the alcoholism industry. He wants us to feel sorry for him, but I don't. Living in wine country they drained our ground water without regard to our community. This is good news as this isn't food, it is alcoholism
The NapaRiver is now dry.......the vineyards are green. The wineries are event centers, the forests are being stripped for more vineyards. Too many wine grapes and destruction of groundwater reservior.
I stopped by US wine years ago. I can find bottles of European wines for under $15 that I am more than happy drinking. I’m not buying this is just a function of subsidies of foreign governments nor tax subsidies for imports. How about the cost of land in CA vs that in Europe that has passed down from generation to generation. I’m fine with the domestic wine industry going out of business. We still pay twice what the Europeans pay in Europe and it’s still cheaper than buying CA wines. Sorry but if the economics don’t work for growing wine grapes in CA it’s not like it a matter of national security. Sounds like over supply to me.
Crazy rich white men just keep planting. Simple as that really rich guys want a vineyard and a winery for their RUclips channel and their Instagram photo op. It ain't farming its fame.
Govt caused inflation has caused the price of wine, as well as every product, to increase in price. People of all adult ages would drink wine if the price were right. It's not because 'young people are not drinking wine'. That's not the reason. Also, if there is truly an oversupply of wine, the industry would lower their prices to move the product. Some money comes in is better than no money coming in.
500 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of wine,while your neighbors who don’t have vineyards have to go deeper on their wells to just live because of the neighbors vineyards sucking down the aquifer…Adios and good riddance to the wineries…
California Governor Gavin Newsom is one of the owners in the "Plumpjack" California vineyard and winery. It would be interesting to see how this situation is affecting him, if at all.
I love Concord grapes, and we used to be able to buy delicious huge juicy dark purple conquered grapes in abundance every season. It's impossible now because nobody's growing them. It sure it would be nice to have some eating Concord grapes again.
It seemed to take forever to get to the actual explanation of California winery decline. In short, worldwide competition and secondly the outrageous collective cost of California government. No product or service can long survive bad government in the private sector. California has become a socialist nanny state that micromanages everything and anything, expect very bad economic consequences as a result.
Keep up the good work. As a fellow American who would NEVER find myself living in CA due to the policies there. I still don't want to see CA fail. I would love to see it come back to the golden state that it once was for decades.
I had a vineyard for 13 years. I finally pulled out the vines in 2013 and sold the metal stakes. It was a ton of work, unreliable winemakers not paying, and especially UC Davis over promoting new vineyard plantings.
I travel regularly up and down the state, and spend a lot of time in Sonoma County, and can say that there are too many acres now under cultivation for grapes. Greed and big ag are the problems here. He said in the interview that farmers are saying, "If I pull out my vineyard, what will I go into?". Well, what what the land use before the grapevines were planted? So much acreage was formerly rolling hills of inland valley oak, or some other food crop, etc. Vineyards are ecological deserts - almost no growers make room for the nature around them, they douse crops with pesticides, fungicides, etc. Let's really evaluate land use/abuse and get the giant corporations out of the business.
I only had to wait 4 minutes in to hear what I expected to hear. California is one of the most expensive places to do business in the world and we've seen an acceleration of regulations, I'm sure there are many factors affecting the wine industry, but those 2 things will kill a lot of businesses.
WTF are you talking about? In that time frame he simply says that his customers are old and that younger adults don't buy the product. That's not the state of California's fault.
@@TheWhale45 Lack of customer demand is THE problem. The government regulation comes with the government help they get. Of course they never mention that.
I’m a native in central California. All those spendy wine bars that popped up in a decade are closing. The wine boom was insane for the last couple of decades. Wine tours, tastings, now a $20 dollar bottle is $50…and the DUi’s got the rest of them. Consumers are buying whatever is cheap and tasty during a bad economy. I know a lot of families hurting in California. The wine industry will endure,it’s just changing. again. Great interviews. ❤🙏🏽
@@jodiburnett6211 I have, sadly, been watching someone of great talent and immense personal charm…and good looks…sip himself into an alcoholic stupor, exclusively on high end wines. The guys relish his good stories, the women…we know what they’re thinking. His partner lashes out at anyone who dares to note that he is in crisis…. And he’s the alpha male, so he goes his merry way.
I am a 71-y-o Californian and I found that if I slow down in buying something, that industry goes kaput soon! Any restaurant in our neighborhood that we don't frequent goes out of business. Same for wine. It has been 3 years since we frequently purchased wine and today I turn on RUclips and am chagrined to learn that the CA wine industry is on the brinks of losing everything! What gives? Am I THAT important?!
Poor California! Where were Californians when rust belt cities and industries across the US were dying due to overseas production? They were mocking them as "flyover country" and buying cars from Asian countries. Now it's their turn to suffer as much of the midwest has learned how to survive the economic downturns. Wait until those million dollar homes are selling for $100-$200,000.
@@rmwtsou Maybe you just have very typical taste. Your decisions aren't for no reason and others are likely making similar choices for similar reasons.
Equal Hay @@Mrbfgray U know what equal sharing of electrical power supply is yes? Ur cells run on Voltage yes? What's ur recording speed profile Are U gifting electrons or sucking on electrical power Knowing One from the other is knowing it in the presence of an Apex Aai W predator torture chamber Victim victimizer QI coded software engineering experiment that spread to 2 other Matrices that is an infection of neurological delay Mobius strips Hive Mind Cybernetic Group Think Thought police Robo Cops Go watch Minority Report with Tom Cruz They spilled the beans Let the cat out of the bag Or opened Pandoras Box Now all the chaos generators are running loose on the planet It was released and got out of the exclusion zone and became a hazardous radiological biological environment B cuz Parasitic plasma waves can write it's demon seed codings transfers into ur cellular bio neural network coded circuitry phasing speed and the next thing U know U lost ur original memories of ur TRURE Solar Rishi Spiritual coded identity of divine born mathematical eternal life coded temples Parasites communication codes communicating with each other and looking for food to siphon electrified power supply to power their Nucleotides otherwise they don't exist The adrenochrome factories network Does that ring a Taco Bell pepper 🫑 They don't wanna listen to the Borgha Matrix Quarantine TRUTH even though it's in their face everyday cuz all U gotta do is visit any typical Courtroom and watch them argue all day about victims and victimizer software experiment The amount of tyme and electrical power they spend all their time and energy arguing over everything The tennis court needs 2 opponents Electrical power and electrical power playing a game Winners and losers of numbers If U wanna C the Borgha Matrix Quarantine Victim victimizer on full display go watch an old FOX NEWS video when Bill O' Reilly was the #1 Hit of subscribers giving their electrical attention to another Walter Winchell Gossip water column never center rod of vertical Spinal wave center endocrine disruptors than go C this video FOX NEWS Attack on Killing Reagan George Will a famous right wing electric foot pedal and the left foot magnetic sound amplifier were going at each other arguing about credibility over what's TRUE and NOT TRUE That's the Borgha Matrix Quarantine They don't know what's TRUE U know why ? Their telephone line went dead light Intelligence battery operated slaves to OBEY the ABUSER and refuse to accept responsibility and accountability for telling me absolute TRUTH which is eternal absolute pure love on Fire to Create God source worlds NOT Artificial cloned life forms worlds They don't know the difference anymore They have been lieing about everything for so long they can't keep track of them to clean up their act and Spiritual house cleaning to restore full spectrum sensing capacitor levels of phasing speed Vacuum PSI coded Neutrinos naturally gifting electrons to experience God source Krystal River Spiral Spiritual mathematical structural engineering integrity organization of planetary memory driven mathematical elemental Union square root of 2 and inverse square root of 2 becomes One Tetrahydrolase fused with Helium to experience being One with God source worlds That's Basic molecular covalent bonded elemental Union command line function authorization to manifest pure internal eternal absolute love on Fire to Create worlds born out of the Silver and gold mated Reuche Grand Creator Spirit Honor Mu ah VA 💋 🌈 Aurora's
Well spun Stuart. But it seems like: 1) the big winery lobbies did a better job than you with the 2004 law; 2) those big wineries are doing just fine today and not complaining; 3) there was far too much overproduction in the last 30 years and now it’s coming home to roost. I have trouble feeling too sorry for the gentleman farmer tech millionaires who bought wineries to impress their friends and are now getting de stemmed and crushed.
The wine just isn't that good to be honest. Came back from France and a $8 bottle is better than a local $40 bottle at the winery. Also, most wineries are shifting to wedding venue and it seems like wine is an afterthought. Young generation thing I don't believe, maybe $17 a glass is the issue. Also, winery store fronts in urban areas are boring, its the same vintage, don't like it? Well can't wait a year for another vintage. We need more dynamic wine bars that offer variety and competitive price points.
I saw how expensive it is to grow the grapes and make the wine. Anything from overseas that you buy in a store is not the same as buying directly from the vineyard. Good tasting wine will ALWAYS be more than $30 a bottle! California’s taxes and BS doesn’t help.
@@ruthdella37 respectfully disagree. A $40 bottle at the winery here in SoCal will typically not beat a $15-20 bottle at the store. A $40 bottle here at the winery is not even in the same league as a cheap French wine. Not to involve my personal life here but I spend a lot of time at wineries in Southern California and France. It’s probably just way more expensive to produce wine here. Unfortunately it’s not even that good. As a side note: When you think winery in California what do you think of, the vineyard or the experience (facilities). These wineries here in CA are essentially mega mansions. There’s a huge expense for that. In France it’s quite different. Vineyard first, hosting second. Historically, they’re now changing to be more consumer facing.
I agree. $17 is too expensive for a glass of wine. It’s why young people are not drinking it and it’s going out. Better to sell good wine at a cheaper price for people to drink often. Wine brings people together. Nobody should think twice about opening another bottle.
As a wine consumer and owner of a winery/vineyard I’d say that the quality and the price of ca grown wine is not at par with other regions. I just had a Greek rose wine which cost me under 30 dollars and it was simply incredible. I mean one of the best wines I’ve ever had I went and ordered a couple of cases of it to drink it over the next year. I cannot even think of a similar quality rose from California. So, this is not as Black and white regulations affecting the quality of wine. More importantly is the outrageous price of land in CA and that’s 100 percent regulation related. This old farmers he mentions who have owned land have benefited from the rise in the value of land period. It is too costly to come and buy a new vineyard and improve quality suddenly your price per bottle goes past 100 and that’s a very small market which tends to buy established well known wines. Too much grape growing and as he said a generational shift away from wine consumption. Younger people are buying foreign wines bc the quality is also better not simply bc of lower price. I remember after 08 I’d go up to Sonoma or Napa and you’d hear of grapes sitting on the wines unpicked. Yet people kept planting more grapes for wine making. Clearly a disconnect with the supply demand dynamics here talks about. A lot of this land is in the Williamson act so it benefits from lower taxes as long as it remains as agricultural. So there are a lot of government subsidies in CA as well. Here’s a point about quality of California wines they refuse to label the ingredients in their wines. When it came up to extend the labeling law to wines they fought it bc a lot additives and sugars are added to California wines. In short is not as simple as regulations mind you 04 was the bush administration that enacted this import waver laws.
The hyper rich tech guys, Texas developers, egomaniacs just keep planting. Drumright, DiCesaria, Ciminelli, Cervantes and Gallo just won't stop planting. All in Napa County. It's not over regulation it's ego. Pure selfie opportunity ego.
@@johnmcnamara9728 agreed! So many wines are so expensive to buy in Napa and many of those are big jammy reds with higher alcohol content. Italian wines, for example, with more complexity and subtlety for a fraction of the price is much more palatable. Napa in the seventies created more European style wine but they got away from it as there was a certain reviewer who loved bigger ripe fruited reds?
@johnmcnamara9728 If you want to drink chilled pink wine you should try white zin, which is competitively priced with that Greek rose--people love that and it's made in CA.
The Williamson act tax reduction for vineyards is infuriating! They should only be used for land kept ad open space or food production not a non-essential crop. The Sonoma County Tourist Bureau is a big promoter of ‘The Wine Country’. Their funding comes from the 2% DOT tax and the BIA assessment. So many things that contribute to the insane cost of land and real estate here. Even visiting the area is cost prohibitive for most people.
Drinking wine for a healthier heart was the biggest myth of my generation. Most of my friends and family simply used it as an alternative source of alcohol. And everyone got fatter and not any fitter. _(BTW... the French are less fat because they eat less processed food garbage and more traditional foods. If we stopped on fast food, sugar-laden cereals and those horrible snacks, our average weight would be 20 lbs less)_
I love California wine and live down the road from Napa Valley. I tried most of those "iconic" wines so I don't care for them anymore. My passion now is finding those farmers who farm their own grapes and I know it's going straight to them and their families vs some big company outsourcing cheap grapes from abroad from God knows who. I've also cut back because of health reasons. Wine really isn't that great for our health. I'm sorry to hear the farmers are suffering and will continue to do what I can to support the little guys. My current favorite is 100% Smith-Madrone. Please let me know what other small wineries you guys recommend...
I have lived in the Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County, area for over 40 years. I have seen the wine industry move in, buying up thousands of acres of formerly dryland grain and cattle country, at inflated prices, and converting them to heavily irrigated vineyards, destroying the local ecology. So many deer fences went up that there are virtually no deer left in the Salinas riverbed. The Paso Robles aquifer is being pumped dry. Oak trees have been pruned up like they are in the Kalahari. The old timers knew how to live within the limits of our environment, but these city-bred newcomers think they know better. All the see is the (fake) prestige. Now, the price of the land is so inflated that when the winos leave, the crop you will be able to afford to grow is houses.
I see the main issue as vastly reduced wine consumption in restaurants. When presented with a charge of $15 for a single glass of wine, I’ll just think “no it’s not worth it.” I suspect many many restaurant goers react the same way. And today I just saw a CA champagne I used to buy for $13.99 is now $21.99 at Von's. Sorry I’ll buy a $9 Prosecco instead.
I also wonder how much of it also has to do with COVID, the shut down of restaurants permanently, California is not reporting on that, along with the world economy in general is in the toilet along with the crappy monetary policy of this admin. IT is also liberal governance that is creating a lot of the problem!
And Gavin makes it so expensive and difficult to just exist in business that they all implode... down to a damn burger. He is today's equivalent to "Boss" on Fantasy Island... "Smiles everyone... Smiles"
@@tonycodolo In the USA, I agree with the video. I see 40 and under drinking less than half what other generations are drinking in wine and beer. Zero calorie or low calorie mixed drinks are popular.
We're in a recession. Folks can't afford regular groceries, let alone indulge in a $185 bottle of Mayacamas. Also I see younger people more interested in beer or hard seltzers, if they can afford it. For people who've invested $250K/acre to grow wine grapes, they may not be able to recoup their costs. They'll either have to switch to other higher cost crops (like nuts) or grazing exotic livestock (like wagyu cattle). Or they'll go to bankruptcy. Some areas may end up fallow for years.
I was a young “women’s” editor for a daily newspaper in a southern state…in the 1970’s. Stuck for a food feature for the Sunday paper, I hastily assembled a story on California wines. I knew a few labels from visiting wineries and in the Sonoma region, which we had visited before moving east for my husband’s graduate school. My readers were just tuning in to French cooking. To my amazement, that story won a prize for consumer features. It was posted at the end of the wine shelf…at my market. Thanks for this excellent coverage.
Stuart Spencer: “I’m not quite sure what our future’s gonna look like….” Me (and the rest of humanity): If you don’t change your politicians and political/social policies your future is going to look like fertilizer. Certainly, do away with foreign subsidies. But don’t enact state/federal local subsidies either. Anyone can tell you why California wine (or California ‘anything’) is not competitive…(and you are wrong, Patrick Cappiello…..the ‘why’ is indeed something you can change.) What is the cost of gasoline in California to run equipment and transport product? How much alternate equipment/cost are required to conform to state engine regulations? What are the costs of water and scope of water regulations in California? What are the labor costs in California? What are the property taxes in California? What are the employment taxes in California? What other environmental regulations are there in the industry and what are the costs associated? How much real money does it cost a California company to comply with DEI and ESG requirements? How much are the various insurances required to do business in California? How much are the various permits required to do business in California? How is California wine tourism affected by super high costs of California gas, lodging, rental cars, restaurants, groceries, road tolls, flights, parking, etc. How much expensive California wine can a typical Californian afford? No, let’s just focus primarily on stiff competition from the rest of the world, younger generations not drinking as much wine and grocery stores not promoting high priced local wines to local people. Grocery store margins are razor thin, which is why many are leaving California (ie:regulations and also the Proposition 47 lunacy) I absolutely love Lodi, Lodi Wines and Lodi Olive Oils, but some folks need to step outside the bubble.
I shop at Safeway and they've jacked up the prices of their wines as well as all groceries. Wine is a staple of life. People in France and Italy drink it everyday with their meals. That's the glory of life.
It's not a California thing or political thing. The whole industry is collapsing due to people shifting their taste from wines to beers and so on. And for this guy to sit there to blame California for this, that's a joke. Vendors are able to source their grapes from wherever they find to be the cheapest. If California vineyards charge a really hefty price for their grapes then good luck selling it. It's just economics.
I had a wine shop in Palm desert for 28 years and did quite well ,sold it in 2016...from 2010 on I started losing customers for health reasons, etc...I sold atthe right time...
@@cdawg9149 agreed! Everyone rode the wave for 30 good years of sales and price increases and di3dnt plan for the always inevitable downturn but this time its a double whammy, terrible govt policy causing inflation and overall reduced consumption.
@@BrianButterworth-s4z Too much product , not enough buyers. Just like the overpriced car and truck mkt. etc. Next wine harvest there could be an under supply of product due to lack of production. Prices could spike when supply cant meet demand. I am not a big wino, but if I was Id be stocking up on a bunch of wine at the depressed prices. BTW I dont see a big drop of prices of wine at Costco or Trader Joes. Some on sale, but maybe Im not paying attn.
This State Govt. has make it so expensive to live in CA that the average family can't afford CA wine , from the cost of our utilities , the cost of gas , the cost of food , Insurance , tax's , and on and on the middle class is tapped out !
saw this coming years ago….theres too much competition. every state has wineries now, and pot is cheaper..Then theres the huge problem of Constellation..
Too many rich folks needed a tax break. They bought acreage, planted vines, and built wineries. When they lose money on their wine business, they make it up in tax breaks. Santa Barbara County is a great example of over-planting. Results? Great California Chardonnay is $5 to $7 a bottle at Grocery Outlet in California.
One way to get consumers to think about buying American and California wines might be to provide certified batch level toxicology information on the bottle labels. For example, when the wildfires burned hundreds of homes in Napa and Sonoma, I think that some ash and smoke residues from say hundreds of lead car batteries going up in smoke must have affected the grapes, at least compared to a year when there were no such fires. So some testing that provides assurance that levels of airborne pollutants such as methyl mercury, pesticide residues, and lead might provide some assurance that would not be present on the imported wines.
That’s never going to happen. The results would be frightening. Anybody drinking wine now it’s not only drinking that doesn’t matter so additives, but they’re also drinking all the toxins from the fires.☠️
Here are the bullet points from the video: * The California wine industry is facing a slowdown in sales. * Wineries are filled with unsold inventory and wine growers are struggling to find buyers for their grapes. * This is due to a number of factors, including a decline in wine consumption among baby boomers, increased competition from imports, and rising costs in California. * The video also discusses the impact of these challenges on farmers and winemakers, who are struggling to make ends meet. * Some winemakers are giving away their grapes for free because they can't find buyers. * The cost of producing wine in California is high, due to regulations, labor costs, and the cost of land. * There is a lot of competition from imported wine, which is often cheaper than California wine. * Some people believe that the future of the California wine industry is in danger. * However, there are also some people who are optimistic about the future of the industry. * One example is Avivo, a new wine brand that is focused on making healthy, sustainable wines.
Good summary. I would point out that these healthy, sustainable wines will be more expensive to produce and that their primary customers, Gen Zers have the least money.
America has never been good at looking at the long term.....regarding anything. I spend time in Europe every year and they all seem much more aware of looking ahead many years instead of only worrying about immediate profits. America is based on immediate profits only.😢
It's always been known to the Napa locals it's easy to make a million dollars in the wine industry in Napa, 'all you have to do is spend 2 million dollars😊
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, better known as the 2018 Farm Bill, signed into law in late December 2018, removed “hemp” - defined[1] as cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) and derivatives of cannabis with “extremely low concentrations of the psychoactive compound delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol”[2] (no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry weight basis) - from the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Prior to the enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill, the CSA did not differentiate between marijuana and hemp, and all cannabis (with certain exceptions) was a Schedule I substance and, therefore, controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). By carving “hemp” out from the definition of “marihuana” - the Schedule I controlled substance - Congress effectively legalized the cultivation and sale of hemp (as well as “all” of its “derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids,” and more) at the federal level. Make hemp products - clothing, paper, hemp wood and plywood. This can overtake the unused vineyards.
No, it will contaminate the cannabis business with pollen. Some places make it illegal to grow hemp for that reason. Grow that stuff in Kansas or something.
agree.. but it ain't as simple as one might think. costs a shit.ton Have a neighbor who needs to pull out some almonds Doesn't have the $ to pay to the remove them as almond prices have been crap for a few years and property tax and insurance ain't getting any cheaper. Most.of which is traceable to bad economic policies during covid by Biden .
@@Gshmeed The one man at the end was talking about growing pistachios. What seems like another good alternative crop that could be grown is olives. Worldwide demand for olive oil is high and is that in unlikely to change in the perceivable future since it is considered one of the healthiest oils.
Yes a vineyard in the Sierras opened their property up to pick grapes last year. I made the most amazing petit sirah jelly thanks to them ! Also, not as many rice fields these days.. not good.
In Spain we have decent wines from 4-5 eurs the bottle, or 6 $ the liter. Even so, its consumption is decreasing, young people prefer beer and there is an increasingly teetotal population. Production costs must be very high in California if farmers expect $6 for each kilo of grapes.
Why doesn’t anybody mention the fact that it’s the states democratic policies that are chocking up these and every other business here? They keep talking about “buy locally” but when the regulations make the cost of buying wine so expensive, many people don’t have that option to buy locally.
Well, I guess it is nice to be stupid. Sales of wine and beer are declining because these were a staple for baby boomers. Guess what is happening to that generation? No idea? The younger people are drinking less and less alcohol. Then they do drink, it appears they prefer flavored seltzers, which I see taking over the beer and wine shelves in my local supermarket market. Hopefully you can read this. I tried to keep the words real simple. Oh, I’m a life long Republican. I’m probably older than you, and obviously educated. The down turn has nothing to do with democrats or republicans. It is just a change of old vs new, as well as way over supply of grapes. When I moved to my current house in 2000, there were 2 wineries. Today there are 37 competing for the decline baby boomer population. And we don’t drink as much as we did when we were younger. Many of us stopped drinking all together. Maybe that is why we are living into our 80s.
Hi, I grew up in Sonoma, been here just shy of 60 years. You know Napa is just over the hill, 10 miles away. I’ve witnessed the whole explosion of “wine country” firsthand. It was not good for the true historical locals. It ruined true Agriculture that was sustainable and sustaining the inhabitants of our areas. Do you all realize that we were “rural agriculture”, supplying food for us and other areas? Do you consider yourself a “conservationist, maybe a ‘greenie’?”. Well consider this…wine grapes cover almost all of our valleys now, remember, you can’t really eat these grapes. That being said, wine grapes do not blossom. That means, our most treasured asset of agriculture has been nearly wiped out, yes, I am talking about the Honey Bee. Think about that. Another issue this broadcast seemed to have ignored, but maybe included, as I didn’t watch beyond 17mins, is that most of “our LOCAL wineries AND vineyards” were bought up years ago by huge conglomerates, for instance “Fosters”, a foreign company. Hmmm, makes you wonder if there isn’t some kind of loophole there for them importing foreign wine. There is so much more to this story, but I don’t need to write a book. Wine is awful and fake as is the “circus” they have built up around it here the Sonoma/Napa valleys.
Here is a guy crying about overseas wine. I bet his workforce is 80% illegal immigrants. If we cried about jobs for U S citizens when times were fat for him... he'd be laughing in our face all the way to the bank. We know who makes up the farming community workers in California. I feel no remorse for those guys. This name says it all Cesario Estrada Chavez.
Really? You want us to pay for expensive Wine while I am looking for cheaper Gas and cheaper food? I want to get smashed and I can do that with cheap wine. Lets be real son!
Our laws definitely have to change so that if it says it's American or California or Sonoma it has to be a 100% of that or they can't call it that. The consumers do care.
I applaud your hard work and dedication to your job. Thank you for making this so we all can understand the situation. I will do my part to purchase your wine.
$5 buck Chuck is wine for people who don't like wine. It's like looking at a host of microbrews in your area and going "Nah - I'll stick with Coors Light."
I grew up in Napa 1962 .There was very few winery's actually in Napa, it was pears ,peaches, apples, prunes the downtown was clean it was a small town . Silverado only had 9 holes . There was the other McDonald's and yes they had a farm but don't mess with the twin boys lol. That family worked hard . The police new everyone and was friendly we used to take our rifles as kids and practice targets near the creeks . We never ever thought of shooting people . Napa was cheaper then Vallejo. Last I heard Napa cost one million per acre. Today you couldn't pay me to live there. The people are weirdos and are rude . Everyone thinks they are better then the other. Personaly I don't drink wine. I think when they closed Napa state Hospital all the Koo Koos got out . Now parts of downtown looks like Tijuana Mexico. But then again look at what the Democrat ran state looks like everywhere else. We need to change the California Flag JUST FECES ON A WHITE FLAG. Democrat's have destroyed California.
My family had a winery started 1880s in Napa Valley then prohibition shut it down. In 1972 my grandfather established a winery in the Napa Valley which I worked on off an on in the 1980s. One is the expense of how a bottle of wine cost even my family's wine is of my price range, so I spend my money on other things instead.
I APPLAUD the slow down in California's wine-related industry. Most vineyards and wineries represent an ego driven pursuit, and wine is certainly not an essential food group. The explosion of vineyards has severely impacted California's scarce water supply and fragile ecology. Reports show that making 1 gallon of wine takes 75 gallons of field water + 6 gallons of processing water. California's water tables are being depleted by agriculture (including vineyards) - leaving many small towns with insufficient water for local residents.
@dornie_donko - An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the mind typically organizes and interprets sensory information. Illusions can alter our perception of reality,
I love the farmer at the end of the program. Resilient and deciding on regenerative farming organic. Avivo, brilliant! I watched a program with the same mindset for vital eggs I buy them. I want the quality and what these farmers stand for.
You can tell when you see Alpacas and Llamas on the property that the woman gets her expensive way all the time. We know if it was a man's choice it would be a cattle ranch, golf course, shooting range, motocross, race track.
Overproduction and lower cost competition. Lower demand requires reduced production. Bankruptcies in Cali will take care of the overproduction. Cali is not capable of lowering production costs.
Thanks for the always excellent content! Stuart Spencer has been an incredible asset to Lodi and the California Wine Industry more broadly; I really appreciate you having an industry insider of his caliber on to share the dreadful state of affairs plaguing us currently.
It’s a bigger issue than wine. Weed is taking alcohol’s place. I personally know people who have been drinkers for their entire adult lives, give up alcohol for weed. I’m GenX FWIW.
I use to buy California wine but now i buy it from paces more in line with my conservstive lifestyle. I have no intetest in supporting liberal progressive ideology.
Younger people don't see the value. Craft beers, cannabis, and exotic cocktails have made wine kind of boring. Also, the price of a bottle of wine at home isn't cheap and a restaurant forget about it unless it tastes like easter egg dye. They have to drop the price and they can. Land prices and California regulations and taxes have made it difficult i'm sure. But it is what it is, adapt or die.
Thanks for that documentary, it was sad to hear about California wines being in trouble. I was a small time wine maker for 14 years, and I took it from the ground to the glass. It was a lot of work on top of my FT job but I LOVED it. I’d still be doing it today… but I had two obstacles, I lived through the cancer. The divorce cost me my house and vineyard. I buy only Napa and Sonoma and little Lodi and CA coastal’s. So many great wines in CA! And so many CA wines that are SO damned expensive that I can’t even think about buying them. (My divorce also got me evicted from Napa for being to poor.) PLEASE FIGURE OUT A WAY TO KEEP MAKING WINE! My liver will not thank you but my mental stability requires it daily.
Perhaps it is the winery that doesnt know how to market themselves outside, they are all leftest anyhow they wouldn't know capitalism if it hit them on the head.
@@muzakaz When the Red army gets a govt. grant to build a solution to the Red caused problem i.e....lots of Republicans doing everything possible to ensure the rising cost of land, food, gas etc.
I believe that you put a major campaign and advertise buying California wines it could help immensely. I'm surrounded by wine industry and I see the positive that comes to the communities.
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Price is what’s killing the California wine market. My favorite winery has gone from $25 a bottle to $80 in ten years. This is very common. I recently purchased a French Rhône for $23 that was as good as the $100 American. Guess which one I’ll buy.
Let me just say… I’ve been living in the Napa Valley for nearly a quarter century. When I first moved here there were far fewer wineries and far fewer acreage available for planting. Over the years thousands of acres of oaks were cut down to make land available for grapes. Many saw $$$ and jumped on the band wagon. Over the years there has become a glut of grapes. In addition twenty-five years ago wineries didn’t charge for tastings. Now you need a reservation and it will cost you at least $20, just to taste. For a very long time the wine industry has been making money hand over fist. They use cheap labor, benefit from the local officials being lenient, etc. If it had not been for greed they would not be in as bad of a position. Over production and the high cost of their products is a huge part of their problem. Blaming competition is like complaining that your neighbors lawn is greener than yours. That’s life! Many, many vintners and wine growers have become exceptionally wealthy over the years, now they’re crying about a little slump?
Oh yes. I remember the days I would drive thru Napa and get a free glass of wine at almost every winery.
_Very different from today, where you get charged for everything. And you pay MORE for that same bottle than the price at your local store. Complete ripoff!_
@@molassescricket6663 best explanation so far, thanks. A shame, but it makes sense this downturn would happen.
@@toothlessseer3153 CA Wine Industry: Wah !!! Wah !!! Wah !!! Wah !!! Wah !!! ( 😂😂😂 )
@@denisceballos9745 Right? And now they’re complaining?
Way back 50 years ago California wines would lobby the Fed govt to make sure a certain percentage of California grape pulp had to be in wine produced for New York State and other Eastern states, They would haul it across the US to be blended into eastern wines so Cal vintners would make alot of money doing that. Naples Ny for instance has had wineries for a long time , - they had Widmers for years and now Hazlitts and as the industry grew in eastern US the wineries were asking why do we have to add Cal grape pulp to our wines, we want our own pure wines. And they began to lobby in Washington and I believe the outcome was that eastern wines were not required to have Cal pulp so that may have hurt the industry also as it grew in California
High prices equal low demand. It’s not health effects, it’s pricing.
I used to buy two or three bottles every time I went grocery shopping but now I use the money for milk and eggs. Wine consumption is a luxury. I don’t buy imports. 🍷
I would purchase fresh grapes, juice and raisins to go with my cheaper and healthier weed than drink alcohol
some of the imports are cheaper than the big wineries. I don't drink alcohol so their price or taste are meaningless for me.
I did take a winery tour back in the early 80's when I still drank the poison. The tasting were free and you could buy wine cheaper than the package store. That was then, this is now.
@@MyLoganTreksbelive in Jesus and have eternal life ❤
Open up the tasting rooms again. Napa has no tourists. In the 80s and 90s you could winery hop and buy bottles on your road trip. Now you must pay $100 to sit in an empty tasting room. There’s no energy and it isn’t fun anymore.
Exactly I'm not gonna pay money to sample a product that I would buy if I enjoy it. I can't think of any other industry that suckers people into paying for their marketing.
Well said.
“It’s not fun anymore” describes the impact of financial engineering and over the top regulations.
But yes, duty draw back was a way for the big guys to crush the competition. Worked beautifully!
Who wants to visit California? It's all about agendas, riots, and radicalism, and no one wants to spend their money on that. No one even wants to live there. Other than the homeless and the rich When I was a kid, we used to drive to visit California. Me? I wouldn't take my family there. Just my perspective.
I have visited some, also a champagne visiting room. It was depressing. My spouse that the same thing that it used to be more fun and welcoming.
@bennyhogan6326 Exactly my friends and I visited Napa Valley for a weekend. While our trip was amazing and I mean the best trip ever! It was so expensive! We could visit multiple tropical destinations for 7 days for the amount we spent in 3 days. We would love you to return, but we just can't.
I took customers out to Napa and Sonoma for years. We’d go and do tasting room tours, buy wines, eat at great restaurants. It was so fun and we have great memories.
When visiting so many wineries you’d get on their email lists and you could then buy wines to ship in. This was great too.
Here’s the problem. That was the late 80’s and 90’s when a good bottle of wine from these vineyards would cost $40/bottle or so shipped in by the case.
Now, that same vineyard sells their wines for $100, $200, and more per bottle. They’ve priced even the most ardent enthusiasts right out of the market.
lol its so true. Napa is a scam, its cheaper to fly to Italy or France to taste some good wine and ship it back.
I remember going to Robert Mondavi for free. The change happened really fast.
The Mexicans want $25-35/hr for unskilled labor! My friends father has a vineyard and has to pay his workers this price.
Thank you for your perspective!
@chuckdawit Correction, they want 25-30/hr because they're skilled workers that get treated like they're unskilled due to artificial market conditions. It's the same everywhere, business doesn't want to pay people what they're worth.l, skilled labor gets the shift I favor of less skilled to widen the profit margin.
Absolutely NO subsidies for these rich dabblers! Napa is full of posers and self promoters. Not one dime for these people.
Subsidy should only be given for food crops. It’s criminal to subsidize wine grapes.🤦♀️
Many of the original owner/maker wineries have been sold private equity firms, once the owner leaves and the private equity management takes over, the wineries lose their authenticity, and generally suck. so yes, I agree.
Amen, they want to be bailed out for bad economic decisions on their part. The stupid wine maker said the graph goes up and to the right T_T me going to be rich.
Totally right. Napa is a bunch of wannabe winter/"movie producer" snowflakes who use their winery for self promotion and endless equity in the bank.
When I moved to the town I live in, Washington state not California, there were 14 wineries here. There are now over 200. But they are starting to fail one by one. I think the market is catching up.
Walla Walla
@nogames8982 kind of the same here but with craft breweries. Had an explosion of them now only the really good ones are sticking around.
Same here in BC Okanagan wine region. We just visited 2 weeks ago. It's amazingly more pretty than Napa. The wine is good but not Napa-great though we found some Napa-level gems there. Last year almost all the vines were killed by a deep freeze so this year there was only a 1/20 the yield of normal. We saw many wineries for sale, shut down, consolidating. Government regulations try to push Canadians to buy BC wines instead of California, which I think is unfair to California. Okanagan is now charging $10-20 per person for wine tasting that used to be free - taking a cue from Napa I guess, though 2/3 of them will refund the tasting cost if you buy a bottle or two. Napa was doing that 20 years ago and now even more pricey for tasting I understand. Anyways if you like visiting wine country, consider the Okanagan to make it more of a complete vacation, better than Napa.
I seen the area between Walla Walla Tri Cities and up the YaKima River how many orchards were converted over 20 years to grapes. Exponential growth. I could never figure where the heck all the wine is/was being sold to.
@@comment8767 you got it
Working people cannot afford $40+ bottles of wine. So we haven’t developed a taste for wine. Period.
Yep because tge richer people have left California tget aren't going to spend extra money to ship ot ti texas or Florida
When those states have thier own winery
@@Patrickf5087you literally have to override spell-check to spell those words wrong…?
@@TheFrogfeeder you clearly don't understand modern spell checkers
Spell a word wrong enough tines, and it assumes it's spelled right
And what's worse, it will "correct" it to the misspelled version
What's even worse is that they removed the convenient part of being able to press hold the word to make it "forget" the word
@@Patrickf5087 lol, THATS your argument?? You’ve spelled 3 and 4 letter common words so often that your spell checker now thinks that’s the right way to spell them?? Ooookay
Depending on the wine, $40 can be a bargain. You can buy good years and keep them in your closet. Did that and I can see the retail prices go up. Break them out for special occasions.
Just like the cannabis industry in California they forgot the basic law of supply and demand. Oversupply caused the price to plummet.
Oregon even more so.
Yeah, but they still are overpriced. Good wine and weed!
Almost as if the death of the cannabis black market caused some abated farms to pivot to grapes to add to the supply..while the demand as you said just isn't there
Sum people push mass junk shiet into the market too. so If you're all about quality and fair prices.. you don't have to worry. Just don't buy from those people who push mass junk shiet and let them be stuck with it.
$50 an ounce in Colorado and even then sales are dropping😂
When will prices drop? I cringe when I look at restaurant menus and see them selling pedestrian wine for $18 to $30 and often much more for a glass. It’s ridiculously overpriced.
Yep, most people I know just won't spend half the price of a dinner entree for a single glass of wine. Simply not worth it.
Good question! My contention as a winemaker and grower is that the prices will drop when the you don't have cheap foreign wine being subsidized (and no taxes on them) by the US Taxpayer being imported to undercut the US grower. Also, the cost of fuel has caused massive increase in packaging materials (glass, corks, labels, shipping, etc).
Restaurant pricing is another issue in and of itself. For restaurants, alcohol is by far the biggest margin item on the menu. They typically earn tiny margins on food. They price wine bottles at 3-5x the retail price. With costs of food, labor, rent, and energy costs high for restaurants and less people eating out, those restaurant wine prices will be ridiculous.
Yes, there has been so much money-printing. The inflation has been horrendous.
As an European I'd say that the prices are indeed a problem. It's not merely about EU subsidies. The Dollar having grown so strong in comparison to most other currencies, including most European currencies, has made American goods much more expensive. Even everything else remaining equal this makes a really big difference, and in addition prices in California has increased a lot more than elsewhere as well. (Because the EU has subsidized farmers for many decades, that is not what has changed the market wine market lately). When I visited California in 2009 prices on everything appeared slightly cheaper than back home and the dollar was somewhere around 70 percent of a Euro. But today living expenses in California would cost me about twice the amount of money than it does here in Europe, and the Dollar is about equal to the euro in value.
I quit drinking wine (and alcohol) 10+ years ago. The best thing I ever did!
Breathe the fresh air my friend
Besides the economy, younger generations are drinking less alcohol stats show.
Right, and they prefer bubbly white claw drinks if they do imbibe.
You drink wine when you are relaxed. The younger generations are too busy playing video games to drink alcohol.
That's good news.
Yes.. and they drink, a lot more coke from colombia😅
@@Juanelloooo apparently weed too
400,000 tons unpicked? How much water was wasted?
Fair question, but... Grapes utilize very little water compared to most crops. Also, the demand that was change very recently based off of the US government providing subsidies to large corporate wineries to import foreign bulk wine, undercutting the US Growers that used to sell the wine to these big corporations. Most of my fellow Growers didn't have time to pivot. We couldn't grow enough 4 years ago and now all the sudden we don't have a demand for hardly any and this is largely due to the incentivization of foreign bulk wine. If you spent $10,000 an acre minimum developing a Vineyard and had been selling that fruit to wineries your whole life and then all of the sudden they decided they didn't want to buy it anymore because they had cheap foreign wine from Spain and Chile that your own government was pushing on them, don't you think we have a little bit of a right to be pissed?
@@FarmerDan209 $20K to $25 per acre to develop a vineyard plus you need to purchase the land
Not as much as The State Wastes with their “First Flush” water program…
@@FarmerDan209 Yes, you farmers have every right to be pissed and the public has a responsibility to stand behind you when you decide it is time to protest these ruinous import policies.
@@FarmerDan209Also, consumers have a right to be pissed when we spend on California wines and they are not the quality we’ve come to expect (probably because they’ve blended CA wine with the cheaper import wines but how would we ever know?) - last month I dumped two bottles of Paso Robles wine down the drain. They were on sale for $12 and $18 so while I didn’t expect to be blown away, I did expect decent table wine.
Too bad, so sad. Before the wineries came along, all sorts of essential crops and livestock were raised in these CA regions.
@@aiastelamonian6868 yeah, at the end of the day, this isn't Europe & you can't eat wine grapes (taste nasty) & more productive crops can be grown in that soil & personally I'm tired of all the government subsides going out to industries, farmers & every one but the average tax payer. That's the reason we're so far in debt today & inflation is through the roof but farmers & ranchers are more important than the EV industry & AI.
@@scrappy836548 Farmers and ranchers are more important than the EV industry and AI. No one needs an EV or AI, but everyone needs food.
@@scrappy836548 Farmers and ranchers get a tiny amount of subsidies if any at all compared to the EV and AI market place. Let alone what massive corporations receive annually.. And essential crops and livestock are grown in these regions but sadly anymore raising food crops can be much harder to turn a profit on compared to growing other things like wine grapes. Many American seem to not understand how things work these days
Precisely. MONO CULTURE is a recipe for disaster.
@@scrappy836548Inflation ISN'T THROUGH THE ROOF. Consider educating yourself.
I watched Napa change over 40 years. There are simply far too many wineries there. Simple.
Same here. (50 years time) I witnessed Sonoma go from diversified farms to mega mono-crops, and major corporate vineyards planted which inundated the market for fast cash affecting the family wineries.
How about grow some food? Alcohol is a luxury you don't need.
Exactly. It may be a large learning curve, but we need more beef growers on regenerative land. Surely these vineyard soils are very good.
@@carolynoconnor8567 More beef in California ? Too water intensive . They should just take over the tequila market . Sorry MX . We'll call it just " Agave " so you don't sue us
I thought grapes were food? I guess I got that wrong.
@@r2dad282 Not a popular one I guess. They just let it rot on the vines.
@@AAWGASHTADSnot at all, just the opposite,read-Allen Savory. Grazing livestock helps to reduce water stress.
Buy wine or put fuel in the tank? Buy wine or put food on the table? The entire nation if not the world, is struggling with all kinds of problems and issues, and wine is important? Nope.
Wine "is" important. To the rich.
My neighbor is a small winery, near oroville, always been successful that I could see with full parking lots on the tasting weekends, live music I can hear from my house, and it was good wine. Last year they sold the vineyard to their children and moved to Mexico, I haven’t seen their children do anything with the grapes this year. I used to get all the squeezed out pulp from them for my cows and goats to spend a nice week drunk out of their minds, we all gonna miss that…
Maybe you should have tourists by for "drunk cows & goats" viewing and wine tasting. That should be a hit!
@@dezafinado Brilliant idea!
Deza....LMAO
Drunk cows and goats? I thought I'd heard everything until now. LOL
Some of the wineries we toured 20 years ago in CA had ducks, geese, goats , donkeys, etc. I didnt think they might be drunk lol. We sure had a buzz. So glad we did it then when it was free and affordable.
My uncle started his Napa vineyard 60+ years ago. He opened his winery in 1982, he was one of about 100 wineries at the time. There are now over 400 wineries in Napa Valley. It’s a wealthy person’s venture it’s driven up the price of land and real estate. The Wine Enthusiast reports, “Sobriety is hip, and the World Health Organization announced last year that it considered no amount of alcohol consumption safe.” There is a long list of legal additives winemakers add to their wines. Even organic wines use additives in the U.S. But in the end, the market will adjust. We’ve seen this before and we’ll see it again.
I grew up in France where people at the times bought wine in crate of 12 bottles , some would have 2 or more crates and the wine dealer van would stop in regular basis , people would leave the crate with empty bottles by their front door and the wine dealer would take the empty and leave full bottles . A glass of what we called “ table wine “ cost around $0.60 at the bar versus $1.50 for a soda .
The problem in America is someone will steal your box
0.60 for a glass of ordinary wine??????
long long time ago may be you are over 90 years old???
today, minimum 3 $ ordinary, select 4 to 5 at bar.
@@denisdenisb6132 I paid about #3/bottle of St Emillion, Montepulciano, and lots of others last summer in Lausanne, Switzerland. Look at California wine prices! Lower the prices and deal in volume and everyone benefits!!
Someone mentioned tasting rooms. Good point. A small taste for free will sell a lot of bottles. It's an insult to be charged to taste a wine.
Around my farm there are thousands of acres of abandoned vineyards for sale. These vineyards are for sale with no buyers because of the cost to remove them, and the aspect of no other profitable crops to take their place. Inflation has pushed up the cost to produce all crops, especially here in California.
This is good news as finally it gives our ground water a chance to recover from greedy large growers we have been fighting for the last few decades
@@concernedrn2844 Small farms like mine may not survive because we don`t have the deep pockets like the large corporate farms. You don`t seem to care about all the people that depend on these farms. Where I farm our water table was coming up until the state decided it was more important to protect the delta smelt over the farms.
Water will continue to be an issue in California’s Central Valley, agriculture is important to Central Valley communities however, agriculture consumes 80% of California’s water, yet agriculture accounts for less than 3% of California’s GDP and for those unaware, California is now the 4th largest economy in the WORLD. California is famous for some of its agriculture, wine, nuts , artichokes, olives and these crops and others should continue but by far the crop that is responsible for the largest consumption of water is alfalfa, which goes to feed cows, you might say California agriculture does not have a water problem , it has a cow problem. Luckily, precision fermentation will soon take the place of California’s cow problem.
@@LawrenceLudy, and no one seems concerned about the “cheap imported” juice/wine that is “exporting” foreign irrigation water to the US. 😉
@@LawrenceLudy Oh I do? I just don't support waste and alcohol makers. What do you grow? Do you use pesticides? Do you implement permaculture? Rain water catchment? Water conservation techniques?
I am almost 67 yrs old and what this gentleman said about boomers is accurate to my experience. I have maybe 12 cases of excellent Napa and Bordeaux. I have lost the desire for drinking wine as I have gotten older. The bottles I have left are special occasion/too valuable to open. I have opened a few but my tastes have changed. Good wine is very expensive. I quit buying and laying down years ago. 25 or so years of good wine for me and now I don’t really care about it. Parker is gone too.
I have to make my own wine. It’s uneven in quality though. I’m no pro.
Only Cabernet? What about Pinot Noir, Syrah, Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling , Chenin Blanc, among others? I think too many of us laid down a lot of heavy hitters that don't go with that many foods. I am still enjoying my collection, but I am trying to diversify. Sorry Napa and your overpriced reds.
Agree. At 63, health and feeling good is more important that a few hours of being buzzed and hung over/sleepy the next day. Gym and green juice is the new go to.
One use to be able to buy a bottle of CA wine for $10. Costco are now selling CA wines ranging from $50 to $120 a bottle. It's outside the price range of the average wine drinkers. If you cannot produce a good wine for $10 to $15 a bottle, maybe you should get out of the business.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. BUT when the growers pay farm workers 20 to 30 dollars an hour.......
Unfortunately California labor is extremely expensive. Yes your right trader joes has decent foreign wine for $10 a bottle
The ca wines are too expensive
@@eugenebaeexactly true
Costco is a shit thief company. Stop buying there
Trader Joe’s 2 buck Chuck anyone?
Visiting tasting rooms in Napa and Sonoma used to be about educating the uneducated about merits of wine/food pairing, cellaring, learning about factors in wine that you enjoyed , tasting, educational tours and classes were affordable, maybe $30-45 Per experience.
However, in the last 10 years that has turned to how much can we charge for tasting,and how many people we can signed up in the wine club, and let’s triple the cost of classes and experiences we offer at our wineries. In my opinion they deserve it
No subsidies for the alcoholism industry. He wants us to feel sorry for him, but I don't. Living in wine country they drained our ground water without regard to our community. This is good news as this isn't food, it is alcoholism
The NapaRiver is now dry.......the vineyards are green. The wineries are event centers, the forests are being stripped for more vineyards. Too many wine grapes and destruction of groundwater reservior.
They get subsidies. They just have to cry "Boo hoo" with their hand out and the money comes, like all ag.
Why should we be subsidizing the snobbiest people in the country?
lol unhinged
@@Saki630 did you just learn that term and was eager to use it?
He said the key word!!! LOYALTY. This generation doesn’t know loyalty and now the companies see that and are taking advantage of this
I stopped by US wine years ago. I can find bottles of European wines for under $15 that I am more than happy drinking. I’m not buying this is just a function of subsidies of foreign governments nor tax subsidies for imports. How about the cost of land in CA vs that in Europe that has passed down from generation to generation. I’m fine with the domestic wine industry going out of business. We still pay twice what the Europeans pay in Europe and it’s still cheaper than buying CA wines. Sorry but if the economics don’t work for growing wine grapes in CA it’s not like it a matter of national security. Sounds like over supply to me.
Crazy rich white men just keep planting. Simple as that really rich guys want a vineyard and a winery for their RUclips channel and their Instagram photo op. It ain't farming its fame.
Govt caused inflation has caused the price of wine, as well as every product, to increase in price. People of all adult ages would drink wine if the price were right. It's not because 'young people are not drinking wine'. That's not the reason. Also, if there is truly an oversupply of wine, the industry would lower their prices to move the product. Some money comes in is better than no money coming in.
People keep voting for this.
500 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of wine,while your neighbors who don’t have vineyards have to go deeper on their wells to just live because of the neighbors vineyards sucking down the aquifer…Adios and good riddance to the wineries…
California Governor Gavin Newsom is one of the owners in the "Plumpjack" California vineyard and winery. It would be interesting to see how this situation is affecting him, if at all.
Yes please answer this
Nance has one too
@TheFrogfeeder Thanks, I forgot about "Princess Pelosi."
Newsome In true democrat grift being "more like Europe" getting covid subsidies loans
Plumpjack will thrive since competition will thin out and Gavin will continue to making sweetheart policies for his affiliate businesses and donors.
I love Concord grapes, and we used to be able to buy delicious huge juicy dark purple conquered grapes in abundance every season. It's impossible now because nobody's growing them. It sure it would be nice to have some eating Concord grapes again.
I have some along my fence and everyone loves them. Have been trying to grow from cuttings.
Concord grapes. (conquered.) Agreed; Concord grapes have a delicious; smoky flavor. Yum.
I just bought some yesterday.
It seemed to take forever to get to the actual explanation of California winery decline. In short, worldwide competition and secondly the outrageous collective cost of California government. No product or service can long survive bad government in the private sector. California has become a socialist nanny state that micromanages everything and anything, expect very bad economic consequences as a result.
@@paulgithens635 sound like that’s the explanation that you wanted, not the reality.
@@hehel5163 cool. What wasn't correct?
@@hehel5163what’s your explanation of what’s going on in this shit show state?
yes and many vinery owners are leftest....
The outrageous collective costs imposed by California government?
Keep up the good work. As a fellow American who would NEVER find myself living in CA due to the policies there. I still don't want to see CA fail. I would love to see it come back to the golden state that it once was for decades.
I had a vineyard for 13 years. I finally pulled out the vines in 2013 and sold the metal stakes. It was a ton of work, unreliable winemakers not paying, and especially UC Davis over promoting new vineyard plantings.
Good timing.
Depends on what you planted and where. Napa cab, Sonoma and Willamette pinot still get good prices despite the free fall in other AVAs.
I travel regularly up and down the state, and spend a lot of time in Sonoma County, and can say that there are too many acres now under cultivation for grapes. Greed and big ag are the problems here. He said in the interview that farmers are saying, "If I pull out my vineyard, what will I go into?". Well, what what the land use before the grapevines were planted? So much acreage was formerly rolling hills of inland valley oak, or some other food crop, etc. Vineyards are ecological deserts - almost no growers make room for the nature around them, they douse crops with pesticides, fungicides, etc. Let's really evaluate land use/abuse and get the giant corporations out of the business.
I only had to wait 4 minutes in to hear what I expected to hear. California is one of the most expensive places to do business in the world and we've seen an acceleration of regulations, I'm sure there are many factors affecting the wine industry, but those 2 things will kill a lot of businesses.
More people, more regulations, less resources.
and people get sick of it after awhile.
WTF are you talking about? In that time frame he simply says that his customers are old and that younger adults don't buy the product. That's not the state of California's fault.
@@AndrewTubbiolo He blames The STate every other sentence. as for people not drinking sour $40 buck a bottle wine yeah that's a problem too.
@@TheWhale45 Lack of customer demand is THE problem. The government regulation comes with the government help they get. Of course they never mention that.
I’m a native in central California. All those spendy wine bars that popped up in a decade are closing. The wine boom was insane for the last couple of decades. Wine tours, tastings, now a $20 dollar bottle is $50…and the DUi’s got the rest of them. Consumers are buying whatever is cheap and tasty during a bad economy.
I know a lot of families hurting in California. The wine industry will endure,it’s just changing. again.
Great interviews.
❤🙏🏽
@@jodiburnett6211 I have, sadly, been watching someone of great talent and immense personal charm…and good looks…sip himself into an alcoholic stupor, exclusively on high end wines. The guys relish his good stories, the women…we know what they’re thinking. His partner lashes out at anyone who dares to note that he is in crisis…. And he’s the alpha male, so he goes his merry way.
The last chap is easily the most knowledgeable.
I'd buy a few bottles if it could be divulged what wineries use his fruit in addition to Avivo, there should be others
I am a 71-y-o Californian and I found that if I slow down in buying something, that industry goes kaput soon! Any restaurant in our neighborhood that we don't frequent goes out of business. Same for wine. It has been 3 years since we frequently purchased wine and today I turn on RUclips and am chagrined to learn that the CA wine industry is on the brinks of losing everything! What gives? Am I THAT important?!
Poor California! Where were Californians when rust belt cities and industries across the US were dying due to overseas production? They were mocking them as "flyover country" and buying cars from Asian countries. Now it's their turn to suffer as much of the midwest has learned how to survive the economic downturns. Wait until those million dollar homes are selling for $100-$200,000.
@@rmwtsou Maybe you just have very typical taste. Your decisions aren't for no reason and others are likely making similar choices for similar reasons.
Industries are collapsing and no one realizes it, our country is going into major depression.
A culture that affords wine is gross IMO.
@@starfleetcommander Really? Poverty is the goal? That was easy.
Yeah I've heard same every month since 2010 with equal likelihood.
Yes and this industry is a perfect example of the collapse
Equal Hay @@Mrbfgray
U know what equal sharing of electrical power supply is yes?
Ur cells run on Voltage yes?
What's ur recording speed profile
Are U gifting electrons or sucking on electrical power
Knowing One from the other is knowing it in the presence of an Apex Aai W predator torture chamber Victim victimizer QI coded software engineering experiment that spread to 2 other Matrices that is an infection of neurological delay Mobius strips Hive Mind Cybernetic Group Think Thought police Robo Cops
Go watch Minority Report with Tom Cruz
They spilled the beans
Let the cat out of the bag
Or opened Pandoras Box
Now all the chaos generators are running loose on the planet
It was released and got out of the exclusion zone and became a hazardous radiological biological environment B cuz Parasitic plasma waves can write it's demon seed codings transfers into ur cellular bio neural network coded circuitry phasing speed and the next thing U know U lost ur original memories of ur TRURE Solar Rishi Spiritual coded identity of divine born mathematical eternal life coded temples
Parasites communication codes communicating with each other and looking for food to siphon electrified power supply to power their Nucleotides otherwise they don't exist
The adrenochrome factories network
Does that ring a Taco Bell pepper 🫑
They don't wanna listen to the Borgha Matrix Quarantine TRUTH even though it's in their face everyday cuz all U gotta do is visit any typical Courtroom and watch them argue all day about victims and victimizer software experiment
The amount of tyme and electrical power they spend all their time and energy arguing over everything
The tennis court needs 2 opponents
Electrical power and electrical power playing a game
Winners and losers of numbers
If U wanna C the Borgha Matrix Quarantine Victim victimizer on full display go watch an old FOX NEWS video when Bill O' Reilly was the #1 Hit of subscribers giving their electrical attention to another Walter Winchell Gossip water column never center rod of vertical Spinal wave center endocrine disruptors than go C this video
FOX NEWS
Attack on Killing Reagan
George Will a famous right wing electric foot pedal and the left foot magnetic sound amplifier were going at each other arguing about credibility over what's TRUE and NOT TRUE
That's the Borgha Matrix Quarantine
They don't know what's TRUE
U know why ?
Their telephone line went dead light Intelligence battery operated slaves to OBEY the ABUSER and refuse to accept responsibility and accountability for telling me absolute TRUTH which is eternal absolute pure love on Fire to Create God source worlds NOT Artificial cloned life forms worlds
They don't know the difference anymore
They have been lieing about everything for so long they can't keep track of them to clean up their act and Spiritual house cleaning to restore full spectrum sensing capacitor levels of phasing speed Vacuum PSI coded Neutrinos naturally gifting electrons to experience God source Krystal River Spiral Spiritual mathematical structural engineering integrity organization of planetary memory driven mathematical elemental Union square root of 2 and inverse square root of 2 becomes One Tetrahydrolase fused with Helium to experience being One with God source worlds
That's Basic molecular covalent bonded elemental Union command line function authorization to manifest pure internal eternal absolute love on Fire to Create worlds born out of the Silver and gold mated Reuche Grand Creator Spirit Honor
Mu ah VA 💋 🌈 Aurora's
Well spun Stuart. But it seems like: 1) the big winery lobbies did a better job than you with the 2004 law; 2) those big wineries are doing just fine today and not complaining; 3) there was far too much overproduction in the last 30 years and now it’s coming home to roost.
I have trouble feeling too sorry for the gentleman farmer tech millionaires who bought wineries to impress their friends and are now getting de stemmed and crushed.
The wine just isn't that good to be honest. Came back from France and a $8 bottle is better than a local $40 bottle at the winery. Also, most wineries are shifting to wedding venue and it seems like wine is an afterthought.
Young generation thing I don't believe, maybe $17 a glass is the issue. Also, winery store fronts in urban areas are boring, its the same vintage, don't like it? Well can't wait a year for another vintage. We need more dynamic wine bars that offer variety and competitive price points.
Thats an effect ot minimum wage laws,
Let ask you us Newsomes winery doing okay while everyone else's suffering
I saw how expensive it is to grow the grapes and make the wine. Anything from overseas that you buy in a store is not the same as buying directly from the vineyard. Good tasting wine will ALWAYS be more than $30 a bottle! California’s taxes and BS doesn’t help.
@@ruthdella37 respectfully disagree. A $40 bottle at the winery here in SoCal will typically not beat a $15-20 bottle at the store. A $40 bottle here at the winery is not even in the same league as a cheap French wine. Not to involve my personal life here but I spend a lot of time at wineries in Southern California and France. It’s probably just way more expensive to produce wine here. Unfortunately it’s not even that good.
As a side note:
When you think winery in California what do you think of, the vineyard or the experience (facilities). These wineries here in CA are essentially mega mansions. There’s a huge expense for that. In France it’s quite different. Vineyard first, hosting second. Historically, they’re now changing to be more consumer facing.
I agree. $17 is too expensive for a glass of wine. It’s why young people are not drinking it and it’s going out. Better to sell good wine at a cheaper price for people to drink often. Wine brings people together. Nobody should think twice about opening another bottle.
@@francoisl7663you bring a #
Of good points Let us know when you open your wine bar in CA so we can visit it.
GO BACK TO FREE TASTINGS
As a wine consumer and owner of a winery/vineyard I’d say that the quality and the price of ca grown wine is not at par with other regions. I just had a Greek rose wine which cost me under 30 dollars and it was simply incredible. I mean one of the best wines I’ve ever had I went and ordered a couple of cases of it to drink it over the next year. I cannot even think of a similar quality rose from California. So, this is not as Black and white regulations affecting the quality of wine. More importantly is the outrageous price of land in CA and that’s 100 percent regulation related. This old farmers he mentions who have owned land have benefited from the rise in the value of land period. It is too costly to come and buy a new vineyard and improve quality suddenly your price per bottle goes past 100 and that’s a very small market which tends to buy established well known wines. Too much grape growing and as he said a generational shift away from wine consumption. Younger people are buying foreign wines bc the quality is also better not simply bc of lower price. I remember after 08 I’d go up to Sonoma or Napa and you’d hear of grapes sitting on the wines unpicked. Yet people kept planting more grapes for wine making. Clearly a disconnect with the supply demand dynamics here talks about. A lot of this land is in the Williamson act so it benefits from lower taxes as long as it remains as agricultural. So there are a lot of government subsidies in CA as well. Here’s a point about quality of California wines they refuse to label the ingredients in their wines. When it came up to extend the labeling law to wines they fought it bc a lot additives and sugars are added to California wines. In short is not as simple as regulations mind you 04 was the bush administration that enacted this import waver laws.
The hyper rich tech guys, Texas developers, egomaniacs just keep planting. Drumright, DiCesaria, Ciminelli, Cervantes and Gallo just won't stop planting. All in Napa County. It's not over regulation it's ego. Pure selfie opportunity ego.
Go to Lodi. Completely different price to Quality ratio.
@@johnmcnamara9728 agreed! So many wines are so expensive to buy in Napa and many of those are big jammy reds with higher alcohol content. Italian wines, for example, with more complexity and subtlety for a fraction of the price is much more palatable. Napa in the seventies created more European style wine but they got away from it as there was a certain reviewer who loved bigger ripe fruited reds?
@johnmcnamara9728 If you want to drink chilled pink wine you should try white zin, which is competitively priced with that Greek rose--people love that and it's made in CA.
The Williamson act tax reduction for vineyards is infuriating! They should only be used for land kept ad open space or food production not a non-essential crop. The Sonoma County Tourist Bureau is a big promoter of ‘The Wine Country’. Their funding comes from the 2% DOT tax and the BIA assessment. So many things that contribute to the insane cost of land and real estate here. Even visiting the area is cost prohibitive for most people.
Drinking wine for a healthier heart was the biggest myth of my generation.
Most of my friends and family simply used it as an alternative source of alcohol.
And everyone got fatter and not any fitter.
_(BTW... the French are less fat because they eat less processed food garbage and more traditional foods. If we stopped on fast food, sugar-laden cereals and those horrible snacks, our average weight would be 20 lbs less)_
And they walk more. People don't just sit all day they get up and move around like walking to lunch for example.
I love California wine and live down the road from Napa Valley. I tried most of those "iconic" wines so I don't care for them anymore. My passion now is finding those farmers who farm their own grapes and I know it's going straight to them and their families vs some big company outsourcing cheap grapes from abroad from God knows who. I've also cut back because of health reasons. Wine really isn't that great for our health. I'm sorry to hear the farmers are suffering and will continue to do what I can to support the little guys. My current favorite is 100% Smith-Madrone. Please let me know what other small wineries you guys recommend...
I have lived in the Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County, area for over 40 years. I have seen the wine industry move in, buying up thousands of acres of formerly dryland grain and cattle country, at inflated prices, and converting them to heavily irrigated vineyards, destroying the local ecology. So many deer fences went up that there are virtually no deer left in the Salinas riverbed. The Paso Robles aquifer is being pumped dry. Oak trees have been pruned up like they are in the Kalahari.
The old timers knew how to live within the limits of our environment, but these city-bred newcomers think they know better. All the see is the (fake) prestige.
Now, the price of the land is so inflated that when the winos leave, the crop you will be able to afford to grow is houses.
I see the main issue as vastly reduced wine consumption in restaurants. When presented with a charge of $15 for a single glass of wine, I’ll just think “no it’s not worth it.” I suspect many many restaurant goers react the same way. And today I just saw a CA champagne I used to buy for $13.99 is now $21.99 at Von's. Sorry I’ll buy a $9 Prosecco instead.
I also wonder how much of it also has to do with COVID, the shut down of restaurants permanently, California is not reporting on that, along with the world economy in general is in the toilet along with the crappy monetary policy of this admin. IT is also liberal governance that is creating a lot of the problem!
Thank you for mentioning that!! Gavin Newsom's pandemic "response" destroyed a lot of lives and businesses. I moved out of state bc of him.
@@kathybrady4033 So did i, i left almost 2yrs ago.
Consumers are tired of overpriced wine
Overall, demand is plummeting
And Gavin makes it so expensive and difficult to just exist in business that they all implode... down to a damn burger.
He is today's equivalent to "Boss" on Fantasy Island... "Smiles everyone... Smiles"
Not here in Italy, we make what we can sell to local people, we live a simple life. We do not all want to become millionaires. Life is about living.
@@tonycodolo In the USA, I agree with the video. I see 40 and under drinking less than half what other generations are drinking in wine and beer. Zero calorie or low calorie mixed drinks are popular.
They're also growing too many grapes. I live in wine country and the number of acres of vineyards has grown exponentially in years last 20 years.
We're in a recession. Folks can't afford regular groceries, let alone indulge in a $185 bottle of Mayacamas. Also I see younger people more interested in beer or hard seltzers, if they can afford it. For people who've invested $250K/acre to grow wine grapes, they may not be able to recoup their costs. They'll either have to switch to other higher cost crops (like nuts) or grazing exotic livestock (like wagyu cattle). Or they'll go to bankruptcy. Some areas may end up fallow for years.
I was a young “women’s” editor for a daily newspaper in a southern state…in the 1970’s. Stuck for a food feature for the Sunday paper, I hastily assembled a story on California wines. I knew a few labels from visiting wineries and in the Sonoma region, which we had visited before moving east for my husband’s graduate school. My readers were just tuning in to French cooking.
To my amazement, that story won a prize for consumer features. It was posted at the end of the wine shelf…at my market.
Thanks for this excellent coverage.
Stuart Spencer: “I’m not quite sure what our future’s gonna look like….”
Me (and the rest of humanity): If you don’t change your politicians and political/social policies your future is going to look like fertilizer.
Certainly, do away with foreign subsidies. But don’t enact state/federal local subsidies either.
Anyone can tell you why California wine (or California ‘anything’) is not competitive…(and you are wrong, Patrick Cappiello…..the ‘why’ is indeed something you can change.)
What is the cost of gasoline in California to run equipment and transport product?
How much alternate equipment/cost are required to conform to state engine regulations?
What are the costs of water and scope of water regulations in California?
What are the labor costs in California?
What are the property taxes in California?
What are the employment taxes in California?
What other environmental regulations are there in the industry and what are the costs associated?
How much real money does it cost a California company to comply with DEI and ESG requirements?
How much are the various insurances required to do business in California?
How much are the various permits required to do business in California?
How is California wine tourism affected by super high costs of California gas, lodging, rental cars, restaurants, groceries, road tolls, flights, parking, etc.
How much expensive California wine can a typical Californian afford?
No, let’s just focus primarily on stiff competition from the rest of the world, younger generations not drinking as much wine and grocery stores not promoting high priced local wines to local people. Grocery store margins are razor thin, which is why many are leaving California (ie:regulations and also the Proposition 47 lunacy)
I absolutely love Lodi, Lodi Wines and Lodi Olive Oils, but some folks need to step outside the bubble.
So, fascism, communism, or socialism is the answer?? Whoops, sorry to burst your bubble.
@ww2remembered983 you didn't burst anything with our foolish comment. You're obviously not on this person's level of understanding.
@@ww2remembered983they are all the same as y'all are voting for it😂
@@andremccormick2680 You can google fascism, communism and socialism to find out what they mean, dingleberry.
@@beekeeper8474 MAGA BS.
I shop at Safeway and they've jacked up the prices of their wines as well as all groceries. Wine is a staple of life. People in France and Italy drink it everyday with their meals. That's the glory of life.
It's not a California thing or political thing. The whole industry is collapsing due to people shifting their taste from wines to beers and so on. And for this guy to sit there to blame California for this, that's a joke. Vendors are able to source their grapes from wherever they find to be the cheapest. If California vineyards charge a really hefty price for their grapes then good luck selling it. It's just economics.
I think you need open your eyes, California economy is in the toilet due to bad liberal policies.....
Beer sales are down too, all alcohol sku's are down
I had a wine shop in Palm desert for 28 years and did quite well ,sold it in 2016...from 2010 on I started losing customers for health reasons, etc...I sold atthe right time...
The wine will sell for a price the mkt dictates. Not the price the winerys price them at. So lower the price and sell your inventory.
@@cdawg9149 agreed! Everyone rode the wave for 30 good years of sales and price increases and di3dnt plan for the always inevitable downturn but this time its a double whammy, terrible govt policy causing inflation and overall reduced consumption.
I guess it was more expensive to pay labor to harvest and package than the money spent to grow. That's what happened during the Great Depression.
@@BrianButterworth-s4z Too much product , not enough buyers. Just like the overpriced car and truck mkt. etc. Next wine harvest there could be an under supply of product due to lack of production. Prices could spike when supply cant meet demand. I am not a big wino, but if I was Id be stocking up on a bunch of wine at the depressed prices. BTW I dont see a big drop of prices of wine at Costco or Trader Joes. Some on sale, but maybe Im not paying attn.
This State Govt. has make it so expensive to live in CA that the average family can't afford CA wine , from the cost of our utilities , the cost of gas , the cost of food , Insurance , tax's , and on and on the middle class is tapped out !
Baloney. You can still buy decent cheap wine.
California wine is overpriced so I am not crying for these guys. The growers have gotten too greedy and built too much supply.
saw this coming years ago….theres too much competition. every state has wineries now, and pot is cheaper..Then theres the huge problem of Constellation..
Too many rich folks needed a tax break. They bought acreage, planted vines, and built wineries. When they lose money on their wine business, they make it up in tax breaks. Santa Barbara County is a great example of over-planting. Results? Great California Chardonnay is $5 to $7 a bottle at Grocery Outlet in California.
One way to get consumers to think about buying American and California wines might be to provide certified batch level toxicology information on the bottle labels. For example, when the wildfires burned hundreds of homes in Napa and Sonoma, I think that some ash and smoke residues from say hundreds of lead car batteries going up in smoke must have affected the grapes, at least compared to a year when there were no such fires. So some testing that provides assurance that levels of airborne pollutants such as methyl mercury, pesticide residues, and lead might provide some assurance that would not be present on the imported wines.
That’s never going to happen. The results would be frightening. Anybody drinking wine now it’s not only drinking that doesn’t matter so additives, but they’re also drinking all the toxins from the fires.☠️
Here are the bullet points from the video:
* The California wine industry is facing a slowdown in sales.
* Wineries are filled with unsold inventory and wine growers are struggling to find buyers for their grapes.
* This is due to a number of factors, including a decline in wine consumption among baby boomers, increased competition from imports, and rising costs in California.
* The video also discusses the impact of these challenges on farmers and winemakers, who are struggling to make ends meet.
* Some winemakers are giving away their grapes for free because they can't find buyers.
* The cost of producing wine in California is high, due to regulations, labor costs, and the cost of land.
* There is a lot of competition from imported wine, which is often cheaper than California wine.
* Some people believe that the future of the California wine industry is in danger.
* However, there are also some people who are optimistic about the future of the industry.
* One example is Avivo, a new wine brand that is focused on making healthy, sustainable wines.
Good summary. I would point out that these healthy, sustainable wines will be more expensive to produce and that their primary customers, Gen Zers have the least money.
Until 1956, it was a common practice in France to serve wine to schoolchildren, including those under 14 years old, during lunchtime.
Except in the Netherlands. Children there prefer whiskey.
America has never been good at looking at the long term.....regarding anything. I spend time in Europe every year and they all seem much more aware of looking ahead many years instead of only worrying about immediate profits. America is based on immediate profits only.😢
"Community first".... oh, like "America first" ............. YOU GET WHAT YOU VOTE FOR
No, the voters don’t get what they vote for when the vote counters determine elections
Unfortunately, in KommieFornia, we get what it he truckloads of unsigned/undated pre-printed mail in ballots and electronic voting machines vote for.
It's always been known to the Napa locals it's easy to make a million dollars in the wine industry in Napa, 'all you have to do is spend 2 million dollars😊
most people are broke. not necessarily not wine drinkers
Drinking alcohol is decreasing overall. It is good to stay healthy and be safe on the roads.
Theres your answer to why the free wine tasteing and winnery partys went away.
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018, better known as the 2018 Farm Bill, signed into law in late December 2018, removed “hemp” - defined[1] as cannabis (Cannabis sativa L.) and derivatives of cannabis with “extremely low concentrations of the psychoactive compound delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol”[2] (no more than 0.3 percent delta-9 THC on a dry weight basis) - from the definition of marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Prior to the enactment of the 2018 Farm Bill, the CSA did not differentiate between marijuana and hemp, and all cannabis (with certain exceptions) was a Schedule I substance and, therefore, controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). By carving “hemp” out from the definition of “marihuana” - the Schedule I controlled substance - Congress effectively legalized the cultivation and sale of hemp (as well as “all” of its “derivatives, extracts, cannabinoids, isomers, acids,” and more) at the federal level.
Make hemp products - clothing, paper, hemp wood and plywood. This can overtake the unused vineyards.
No, it will contaminate the cannabis business with pollen. Some places make it illegal to grow hemp for that reason. Grow that stuff in Kansas or something.
We are changing to hemp but the market for hemp clothes is so small that when scaling up, we impacted that market as well, the profit went backward
Uh no -
Get the added sulfites out of the wine.
It's a free market country. If you can't sell grapes then grow something else.
suggestion please?
agree.. but it ain't as simple as one might think. costs a shit.ton
Have a neighbor who needs to pull out some almonds
Doesn't have the $ to pay to the remove them as almond prices have been crap for a few years and property tax and insurance ain't getting any cheaper. Most.of which is traceable to bad economic policies during covid by Biden .
@@Gshmeed The one man at the end was talking about growing pistachios. What seems like another good alternative crop that could be grown is olives. Worldwide demand for olive oil is high and is that in unlikely to change in the perceivable future since it is considered one of the healthiest oils.
@@Gshmeed how about not voting for communists.😂
These guys were making a fortune in the '90s. Times change.
Yes a vineyard in the Sierras opened their property up to pick grapes last year. I made the most amazing petit sirah jelly thanks to them ! Also, not as many rice fields these days.. not good.
Washington state had to scale back grapes. In eastern Washington you can't swing a cat without hitting a wine tasting venue. The market is saturated.
Maybe I can buy grapes cheap then. I can make wine myself.
Inflation has wiped out descresenary spending.
@@philiphorner31
Discretionary is what you meant to say
@@philiphorner31 yes plus overall downturn in wine and beer in last 3 to 5 years
In Spain we have decent wines from 4-5 eurs the bottle, or 6 $ the liter. Even so, its consumption is decreasing, young people prefer beer and there is an increasingly teetotal population. Production costs must be very high in California if farmers expect $6 for each kilo of grapes.
Why doesn’t anybody mention the fact that it’s the states democratic policies that are chocking up these and every other business here? They keep talking about “buy locally” but when the regulations make the cost of buying wine so expensive, many people don’t have that option to buy locally.
Well, I guess it is nice to be stupid. Sales of wine and beer are declining because these were a staple for baby boomers. Guess what is happening to that generation? No idea? The younger people are drinking less and less alcohol. Then they do drink, it appears they prefer flavored seltzers, which I see taking over the beer and wine shelves in my local supermarket market. Hopefully you can read this. I tried to keep the words real simple. Oh, I’m a life long Republican. I’m probably older than you, and obviously educated. The down turn has nothing to do with democrats or republicans. It is just a change of old vs new, as well as way over supply of grapes. When I moved to my current house in 2000, there were 2 wineries. Today there are 37 competing for the decline baby boomer population. And we don’t drink as much as we did when we were younger. Many of us stopped drinking all together. Maybe that is why we are living into our 80s.
Yeah f… those regulations, pollute the water with grape waste. Long live the reps who live like there is no tomorrow.
Hi,
I grew up in Sonoma, been here just shy of 60 years. You know Napa is just over the hill, 10 miles away. I’ve witnessed the whole explosion of “wine country” firsthand. It was not good for the true historical locals. It ruined true Agriculture that was sustainable and sustaining the inhabitants of our areas. Do you all realize that we were “rural agriculture”, supplying food for us and other areas? Do you consider yourself a “conservationist, maybe a ‘greenie’?”. Well consider this…wine grapes cover almost all of our valleys now, remember, you can’t really eat these grapes. That being said, wine grapes do not blossom. That means, our most treasured asset of agriculture has been nearly wiped out, yes, I am talking about the Honey Bee. Think about that.
Another issue this broadcast seemed to have ignored, but maybe included, as I didn’t watch beyond 17mins, is that most of “our LOCAL wineries AND vineyards” were bought up years ago by huge conglomerates, for instance “Fosters”, a foreign company. Hmmm, makes you wonder if there isn’t some kind of loophole there for them importing foreign wine. There is so much more to this story, but I don’t need to write a book. Wine is awful and fake as is the “circus” they have built up around it here the Sonoma/Napa valleys.
Towards the end of the day, wine have become toooo expensive.
beer too
Here is a guy crying about overseas wine. I bet his workforce is 80% illegal immigrants. If we cried about jobs for U S citizens when times were fat for him... he'd be laughing in our face all the way to the bank. We know who makes up the farming community workers in California. I feel no remorse for those guys. This name says it all Cesario Estrada Chavez.
Grapes of Wrath - comes to mind...
Really? You want us to pay for expensive Wine while I am looking for cheaper Gas and cheaper food? I want to get smashed and I can do that with cheap wine. Lets be real son!
Our laws definitely have to change so that if it says it's American or California or Sonoma it has to be a 100% of that or they can't call it that. The consumers do care.
I applaud your hard work and dedication to your job. Thank you for making this so we all can understand the situation. I will do my part to purchase your wine.
$5 buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s was the biggest blessing to the wine industry. They might consider expanding their selections for that price point.
lol in 2008 we called it $2 buck chuck
$2 Buck Chuck inflation? 😅
$5 buck Chuck is wine for people who don't like wine. It's like looking at a host of microbrews in your area and going "Nah - I'll stick with Coors Light."
I grew up in Napa 1962 .There was very few winery's actually in Napa, it was pears ,peaches, apples, prunes the downtown was clean it was a small town . Silverado only had 9 holes . There was the other McDonald's and yes they had a farm but don't mess with the twin boys lol. That family worked hard . The police new everyone and was friendly we used to take our rifles as kids and practice targets near the creeks . We never ever thought of shooting people . Napa was cheaper then Vallejo. Last I heard Napa cost one million per acre. Today you couldn't pay me to live there. The people are weirdos and are rude . Everyone thinks they are better then the other. Personaly I don't drink wine. I think when they closed Napa state Hospital all the Koo Koos got out . Now parts of downtown looks like Tijuana Mexico. But then again look at what the Democrat ran state looks like everywhere else. We need to change the California Flag JUST FECES ON A WHITE FLAG. Democrat's have destroyed California.
My family had a winery started 1880s in Napa Valley then prohibition shut it down. In 1972 my grandfather established a winery in the Napa Valley which I worked on off an on in the 1980s. One is the expense of how a bottle of wine cost even my family's wine is of my price range, so I spend my money on other things instead.
I APPLAUD the slow down in California's wine-related industry. Most vineyards and wineries represent an ego driven pursuit, and wine is certainly not an essential food group. The explosion of vineyards has severely impacted California's scarce water supply and fragile ecology. Reports show that making 1 gallon of wine takes 75 gallons of field water + 6 gallons of processing water. California's water tables are being depleted by agriculture (including vineyards) - leaving many small towns with insufficient water for local residents.
How’s everyone liking the new world order taking over everything so far?
I'm not sure, they arent really telling us anythjng..
@@kellypawspa That's where you would be wrong
@dornie_donko - An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the mind typically organizes and interprets sensory information. Illusions can alter our perception of reality,
@@dornie_donko so far, soooo BAD
My sentiments exactly
I love the farmer at the end of the program. Resilient and deciding on regenerative farming organic. Avivo, brilliant! I watched a program with the same mindset for vital eggs I buy them. I want the quality and what these farmers stand for.
Wine vinyards are what the wealthy wife buys to waist the husbands money " dont worry honey its a tax shelter "
Except people don’t get married anymore.
@@unknownperson3649only the losers dont get married. Winners Do.
Exactly. Look at napa county a new winery approved every week!
@@unknownperson3649 😸
You can tell when you see Alpacas and Llamas on the property that the woman gets her expensive way all the time. We know if it was a man's choice it would be a cattle ranch, golf course, shooting range, motocross, race track.
Overproduction and lower cost competition. Lower demand requires reduced production. Bankruptcies in Cali will take care of the overproduction. Cali is not capable of lowering production costs.
Thanks for the always excellent content! Stuart Spencer has been an incredible asset to Lodi and the California Wine Industry more broadly; I really appreciate you having an industry insider of his caliber on to share the dreadful state of affairs plaguing us currently.
It’s a bigger issue than wine. Weed is taking alcohol’s place. I personally know people who have been drinkers for their entire adult lives, give up alcohol for weed. I’m GenX FWIW.
I use to buy California wine but now i buy it from paces more in line with my conservstive lifestyle. I have no intetest in supporting liberal progressive ideology.
Younger people don't see the value. Craft beers, cannabis, and exotic cocktails have made wine kind of boring. Also, the price of a bottle of wine at home isn't cheap and a restaurant forget about it unless it tastes like easter egg dye. They have to drop the price and they can. Land prices and California regulations and taxes have made it difficult i'm sure. But it is what it is, adapt or die.
Cost of production is too high in California, resulting in over priced wine, coupled w Bidenomics = most people can't afford necessities
Thanks for that documentary, it was sad to hear about California wines being in trouble. I was a small time wine maker for 14 years, and I took it from the ground to the glass.
It was a lot of work on top of my FT job but I LOVED it. I’d still be doing it today… but I had two obstacles, I lived through the cancer. The divorce cost me my house and vineyard.
I buy only Napa and Sonoma and little Lodi and CA coastal’s. So many great wines in CA! And so many CA wines that are SO damned expensive that I can’t even think about buying them. (My divorce also got me evicted from Napa for being to poor.)
PLEASE FIGURE OUT A WAY TO KEEP MAKING WINE! My liver will not thank you but my mental stability requires it daily.
Lodi started ripping up some of the most wonderful vines I have ever tasted in my entire life. It just doesn’t make sense.
"It just doesn't make sense" -> it was just explained to you.
@@muzakaz it doesn’t make sense to rip up the best vines. I don’t care about the explanation. God bless your little heart.
@@eprofessio Thank you for the heart-care. Economics 101 is simple but tends to evade boomers and all things Blue.
Perhaps it is the winery that doesnt know how to market themselves outside, they are all leftest anyhow they wouldn't know capitalism if it hit them on the head.
@@muzakaz When the Red army gets a govt. grant to build a solution to the Red caused problem i.e....lots of Republicans doing everything possible to ensure the rising cost of land, food, gas etc.
I believe that you put a major campaign and advertise buying California wines it could help immensely. I'm surrounded by wine industry and I see the positive that comes to the communities.
20 something dollar's a bottle in America ; yet in Europe 2 to 10 ? 🤬 !
@@jamestregler1584 they pay more for gasoline.
Subsidized by the taxpayer. So more than 2 to 10 in reality.
Go figure, both State & Federal government policies are screwing California farmers. Who would have ever seen that coming?